by Aer-ki Jyr
The Calavari nodded. “We have several sites we’re already using to contain prisoners well away from the front lines. We don’t want the troops battling there to be bogged down with security duties. We can send the captives from the jumpships there, though I doubt there will be many. The Nestafar are out for blood.”
“We sometimes employ stun weapons, and it’s best to always have an option in play for capture.”
“We don’t equip non-lethal weaponry…we just aim in non-lethal areas.”
“To each his own,” Morgan quipped. “We just don’t have room on our ships to accommodate prisoners.”
“We will provide it then. The enemy has been making gains on Sri’ka, but not so much as to threaten our major facilities. Our prisons are well secured, and you can be reasonably assured they won’t find their way back into the ranks, so long as the surface war doesn’t turn into a rout.”
“We’ll see what we can do to help in that department,” Morgan promised.
“The target list will be forthcoming shortly. Thank you again for your assistance. You may have just turned the tide in the battle for this world…perhaps even the star system.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Morgan cautioned gratefully.
The Calavari bowed slightly, then his image disappeared.
Morgan proceeded to contact the Kvash battleship, but couldn’t get through on the first attempt. It was several minutes later before an image of an even beefier creature appeared, though much shorter than the Calavari. It actually stood shoulder height to Morgan, though it wasn’t visible on the hologram that adjusted to fit the size of the individual, so from her point of view Morgan had the bulky Calavari replaced by an equally tall living rock monster.
“The battle did not go as planned,” it said with a low, rumbling voice as it flexed its rock-like joints with an annoying scraping sound.
“No it didn’t,” Morgan agreed, ignoring the mild rebuke in its tone. “Where is Sassval?”
“Dead.”
The Archon swallowed slightly. “Can we be of assistance in your repair efforts?”
“You have driven off the enemy. That is enough.”
“Medical evac?” she offered. “It looks like half your ship is inoperable.”
The Kvash was silent for a moment. “We have toxic leaks that we are having difficulty locking down. They are advancing through deck after deck despite our automated containment procedures. Our crew is being forced into a progressively smaller area. Removing them from the environment while our repair teams correct the problem is preferable. We have already contacted the Calavari concerning such an evac to the planet, but your ships are closer.”
“Can you handle a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere?”
“It is not to our liking, but adequate. We do not respire.”
“How many?”
“Approximately 8,000.”
Morgan started running the logistics through her head at lightspeed. “We’ll have the first transport there within half an hour, if you can provide docking coordinates. Doesn’t look like you’ve got many landing bays left.”
“All are inaccessible. Your ships will have to use a gantry way. I do not know how compatible the system will be with your technology.”
“All the equipment in this fleet is post-Alliance, meaning our docking mechanisms are designed to interface with all member races, so they should match up.”
“Acceptable. Our primary sensors are disabled. What is the status of the enemy jumpships?”
“Their command ship escaped, heavily damaged. We have 3 of their jumpships surrounded and are coordinating the Calavari to secure them.”
“Not a total defeat then,” the Kvash uttered. “Do not lose the jumpships. The resources they contain will resupply the enemy for months.”
“We don’t intend to.”
“How much damage was done to the command ship?”
Morgan didn’t answer with words, but quickly sent a data file along the holo-transmission so the Kvash could see for itself. “Heavy damage.”
It took a moment to digest the images, then pronounced them satisfactory. “A fair tradeoff then. We will repair our damage faster than theirs, and they have no guardian fleet at the moment. I will inform the others of their vulnerability. Do you have a current position for the enemy vessel?”
“No, it jumped out.”
“Your sensors can’t track its position?”
“Across the system? No.”
“We will have to extrapolate their course and reacquire their location later.”
“How far can you scan?”
“Our long range sensors are currently down.”
“If they were up, how far?”
“A significant distance with unstealthed jumpships of their size.”
“If you find it, I’d like to know.”
“I will pass along your request,” it said, twitching its head to the left as it looked at something outside of Morgan’s view. “The sooner your transports arrive, the better.”
“On it,” she said, cutting the commlink and issuing orders to the four jumpships to assemble their shuttles, dropships, tugs, and other recovery craft for immediate use. Then she commed the Captain and got him started on prepping an arrival area for the Kvash while she stayed in the command nexus and began cycling out a few of her smaller ships herding the Nestafar jumpships in exchange for the larger ones, freeing up the corvettes and frigates and sending them down into low orbit while she waited on the target list from the Calavari…though she already had a pretty good idea of what ‘targets’ they had in mind.
Her blocky ships weren’t built for aerial combat, but Paul had tweaked the designs enough to keep it a possibility for the smaller warships. They had to run their gravity drives continuously at significant fuel consumption in order to pull off the maneuver, but she admitted that bringing in orbital guns to a mech fight was overly tempting…so long as the naval support was on your side.
When the list did come in there were a few surprises on it, but the primary targets she’d expected were all there, namely the Nestafar’s super dragon walkers. From Mark’s reports they were a bitch to take down from the air and almost impossible to hit from the ground, unless you were willing to sacrifice a slew of your own mechs in the process.
He’d also indicated that tactical explosives were the way to go, but given that Morgan didn’t have any onboard the warships, nor skeets to deliver them, sending in close naval support was the next best option…or perhaps a better one, because plasma and rail gun rounds were easy to replace compared to the high yield, non-nuke warheads that Star Force had nicknamed ‘ship busters.’
Either way, with proper supplies and tactics Star Force could get the job done on the Nestafar army…though Morgan guessed Paul would appreciate this play, even if it was akin to squashing metallic bugs.
4
Captain Wilkinson was waiting inside the Red Ranger’s primary hangar bay when the first of the transports returned from the Kvash battleship. The doors stood open with an energy field keeping the atmosphere in, a definite no-no as far as previous Star Force protocol had been, given that a little glitch in the energy matrix or an oddly shaped craft passing through could result in a sudden depressurization of the bay, killing all those inside and draining internal atmosphere if the connecting doors weren’t also closed. Procedure had always been to evacuate the deck of personnel before the main doors were open, allow the craft to enter or exit, then reclose the doors and allow the personnel to move freely again.
This kept the atmosphere contained short of a malfunction, but made for slow traffic patterns. Recently an upgrade had been made to newer ship designs with a tri-layered energy field covering the doors that led into a short tunnel that had a fourth shield covering the entrance just in case a ring-like object came through. With the way Star Force shields operated, the emitters had to be physically connected to all points on the shield perimeter in order to function, meaning that a straw-shape
d object, when passing through the shield, would isolate the circular section inside it. That would disconnect from the controlling energy flow and the matrix in the isolated region would dissipate.
None of Star Force’s ships were designed as such, but whether through damage or other models, incoming vessels could potentially breach the atmospheric containment on accident…which was why the short tunnel had been added, meaning the incoming ships, such as the Falcon-class dropship passing through as Wilkinson watched, would have to fully penetrate one shield before they contacted the others. This would contain any atmospheric breach to the small tunnel rather than vent everything in the bay out into space.
The tri-layered shield had two backup capacitors to power the extra layers in case main power went out, giving the crew time to close the doors before the hangar depressurized. And each of the two backups were located in different locations so that weapons damage to one area wouldn’t take down both simultaneously, with the primary power feed for the third also being routed through another location.
The end result was that the newer Star Force ships could load and unload continuously while leaving the main doors open without fear of depressurization short of a huge hole being torn in the hull…which was coated with double thick armor around the bays just in case they were intentionally targeted by weaponsfire.
The falcon came through and set down across the bay near the Captain while another followed it in a minute later, both of which eventually disgorged a string of short, walking rock piles that were the Kvash. The ‘rock’ was actually an exoskeleton, over which they all wore containment suits similar to parkas with only their faces exposed to keep in their body heat on the ‘cold’ Star Force ship. Their eyes were the only visible appendages on their faces, with no nose or mouth, though there was a series of small ridges underneath their pointed chin that produced the audial vibrations for speech.
Their heads were also flat on top, giving the impression of a tabletop/hat, but at the moment they were covered with thermally insulating material and out of sight as they plodded over towards the much smaller doors that led to the interior of the jumpship, where Wilkinson was waiting. The creatures moved slow, but according to the Alliance data files they were quicker than they looked, though not up to Archon levels of agility.
“Where are your wounded?” the Captain asked as the first of the Kvash walked up to him.
“In another transport,” the shoulder-height alien said in slightly lower tones. “Is your entire ship this temperature?”
“I’ve arranged a less cold area a short walk from here,” he said, wasting no time and pointing the Kvash forward as they began to group up around him. “If you will follow me.”
“We will,” one of them said, waddling forward with an extra wide shoulder swing that seemed atypical to Humans but was necessary to accommodate their higher masses.
Wilkinson led them down the hall and around a corner, then walked a few dozen meters more before coming to a door that led to a recently emptied cargo bay with a Knight posted by it in full white armor. The Kvash looked pathetically tiny next to her, but then again so did Wilkinson. “How are we?”
“Hot,” she said, pulling open the door with a wave of hot air spilling out and causing his face to flash sweat.
“If you require anything, ask her,” the Captain said, looking back at the Kvash and motioning them in.
“Thank you,” one of them said before waddling into the improvised sweat room with the others following suit, save for one that pulled off next to Wilkinson and looked up at the helmeted giant.
“What race is that one?”
“Human,” the Captain answered while the Knight stood impassive.
The Kvash huffed, staring up at the behemoth with its dark, glassy eyes. “It looks like a two-armed Calavari. How many sub-races do you have?”
“None. We’re all genetically the same. This one took growth enhancements during her training.”
“Growth mods?” the Kvash asked, with another pair stopping to listen while the group from the second dropship appeared around the corner in the hallway, led by another of Wilkinson’s naval officers that had been waiting in the bay. “How do you accomplish that without genetic alteration?”
“That is knowledge that I do not have,” Wilkinson said honestly, glancing up at the Knight.
“Something we ingest,” she said with a shrug. “If we want to get larger we eat more, if we want to shrink we drink a different formula. Most of us prefer the 7 foot range.”
“There’s no limitation?” the Captain asked, curious.
“Not that I was told, save for the ceiling height.”
“Impressive technology for such a primitive race,” the Kvash said, with some of the others making gestures of agreement by clicking parts of their exoskeleton. “Your biotech must exceed your starship design.”
“We have supply crates incoming,” another Kvash interrupted. “Can you have them transferred to this chamber or will we need to carry them ourselves?”
Wilkinson swiped several rivulets of sweat off his forehead, guessing the interior of the room had to be higher than the 120F he specified. “We will arrange for the transfer. We’re also currently reconfiguring another chamber into a lavatory, which we will hopefully have operational within the hour.”
“Hopefully we will not be remaining here long, but thank you for the consideration,” the other Kvash said, motioning for the others to continue inward. They cleared the hallway and allowed the second group to come through, then the Knight pulled the door shut and a blissful wave of air conditioning whipped across the Captain’s forehead now that the blast furnace was sealed off.
“Told you so,” the Knight said as the Captain flicked off several beads of sweat.
“Can you believe that’s still cold for their homeworld?”
“What’s normal?”
“The files say 150.”
“Ouch…thanks for not posting me inside.”
“I wouldn’t do that to a lizard, let alone one of our own. You’ve got to be hot enough in that armor?”
“It self-regulates to diminish thermals…at least the amount I generate. I don’t think it’s rated to compensate for exterior heat. Not with the small power cell that it has.”
“I didn’t know your armor was powered at all, aside from the helmet comms.”
“The movement is all me, but there are a few auxiliary systems with a low power draw. The techs plan to add more as the weight requirements diminish.”
“Is Archon armor the same way?”
“I don’t know for certain, but scuttlebutt says it is.”
“Did you feel that heat?” Wilkinson asked, pointing at the door.
“A bit soaked through,” she admitted.
“Carry on,” he said as a third group of Kvash appeared, led by yet another naval officer. The Captain headed off to the left and back around to the hangar entrance via a different hallway, then stayed to observe the continual offloading of personnel and later the supplies, which consisted of octagonal crates that wouldn’t fit through the hallway. Those he had transferred via the cargo corridors that ran throughout the ship like mini highways, one of which passed over the Kvash-occupied cargo bay.
Several other issues arose during their stay, but were dealt with in course…with Wilkinson finding as many solutions as he could that avoided him and his people from having to go into the hot zones. He desperately hoped he’d never have to abandon his ship and take refuge on a Kvash vessel. Some Alliance races he could handle shipping with, he guessed, but the heat loving living rocks weren’t one of them.
The metallic slug shot out from the ‘forward’ end of the frigate as the ship hovered half a kilometer above Sri’ka’s surface with the slimmest forward tilt possible to give it the depression necessary to target the hoard of Nestafar walkers a little over 10 klicks away. The projectile flashed by too fast for the eye to see, slicing through the air and punching into the side of a super dragon with an
enormous sonic boom following it as the concussion wave punched in the air eventually caught up with the slug’s target.
The heavy armor on the walker crumpled around the impact as the rail gun ammunition broke through into the super dragon’s insides but failed to punch out an exit wound. Instead, all of the momentum was directed into the walker itself, knocking it over on its back where it came down on a pair of giraffes that were escorting it towards the heavy fighting further north.
Morgan smiled as she watched the damage even one of the weapon impacts could do, let alone the accuracy of her pilots as they fired the weapon laterally, having to compensate for the perpendicular gravitational pull. Her view from one of the cameras on the frigate swung to the right as the ship twisted ever so slightly, then the image corrected itself and zoomed out, showing her the line of walkers scattering every which way, save for another super dragon a bit further up the line that was too slow to do much else than continue walking forward.
A second shot fired with similar results, save for this one hit slightly off center and spun the giant machine around a quarter spin before dumping it onto its collapsing legs and down to the ground. After that the frigate closed range and started firing at the other walkers with its plasma cannons, not wanting to waste the heavy rounds against the smaller targets. Simultaneously it fired a lachar off at the shields covering the prefab base that was the functioning as the LZ for the newly arrived walkers, having been offloaded just prior to the naval battle in orbit.
The heavy blast impacted the dome-like shield, catching on the partially energy-resistant matrix with almost no penetration, unlike the naval versions that a lachar could get through with ease. Star Force also utilized different shield technologies on the ground than in space, but they were all a combination of physical and energy shields. Why the Nestafar would only equip their bases with energy-resistant shields and not any of their other war machinery was confusing, but that was the nature of the game they were playing. A lot of the aliens’ tactics, allies and enemies alike, didn’t always make logical sense to Morgan, but they had to deal with them regardless.